Healthy Holiday Strategies: Know and Protect Your Limits

Limits. We all have them. Some of us have an extremely high chaos tolerance. Others of us (me!), not so much. If there is one thing I learned in six months of therapy for clinical depression, it is to become intimately acquainted with and fiercely protect my limits. I can try to ignore them. I can try to defy them. But when I continually push myself beyond what I can truly handle, I end up sick. Sad, but true.

Originally, I had planned to continue this Healthy Holiday Strategies series right up until Christmas, followed by a big New Year’s push to get fit and healthy in 2011. (I just started P90X, and this time, I’m doing the entire 12-week program, I can’t wait to tell you about it!)  I had so many good ideas. Really, I did! Instead, of blogging all these great ideas, however, I found myself getting increasingly more busy and more stressed with family responsibilities and holiday commitments. Sure, I was writing a lot of fitness-related posts…in my HEAD…but none of them were making it to the computer. And, truly, what good is a blog post, if it’s only in my head? My very stressed-out head?

Yesterday, after moving at the speed of light for weeks, I hit a wall. All in one day, I hid in the bathroom to cry, snapped at my precious daughter because she was making a mess, blew off all my housework to take a 2-hour nap, AND had a glass of wine to get me through 3rd grade homework assistance.

I know, some of you are thinking, “That’s hitting a wall? Girl, I do that every day!”

But, for me, those are all the red flags that indicate a big, nasty, depressive episode lurks around the corner. Normally, I wouldn’t even share all this personal stuff on the Internet. It isn’t therapeutic for me. In fact, it’s kind of embarrassing. But hey, this is a blog about health, right? And for me, and for many of you, depression is a very real aspect of our overall health.

So, it is with this post that I must obey my body’s signals and set a limit. I will be stepping away from The Amazing Adventures of Fitness Friday Girl for a few weeks to enjoy the holidays with my family, as well as, refresh and revive myself so I can continue to bring you relevant and timely posts on all-things-fitness in 2011. Hopefully, by then, my posts will make it out of my head and onto the computer. And I will have come out of the bathroom.

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You can still find me on God Speaks Today, where I am posting The Best of 2010, as well as a number of fantastic guest posts.  Have a very Merry Christmas and a Healthy New Year!